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AI most definitely uses more water than a traditional full text search because it is much more computationally expensive.

The water figures are very overestimated, but the principle is true: using a super computer to do simple things uses more electricity, compute and therefore water than doing it in a traditional way.

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Yes, and a YouTube video more than a text article. etc. etc.

It's a tool. The main question should be: is it useful? In the case of AI, sometimes yes, sometimes no.

I mean, think of it this way. If I built a web app that took HTTP requests and converted them into a YouTube video, then downloaded and decoded that video in software, and then served the request, you'd say "that's stupid - you're using 10,000x more compute than you need to".

It's a tool, and using the wrong tool for the wrong job is just wasteful. And, usually, overly complicated and frail. So it's only losses.

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